Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/347

Rh What fruit has its tree of freedom borne? That the confederate people, spite of their being split into small states, with dissimilar laws, languages, religious creeds, manners, and usages, feel themselves nevertheless, brethren, by a common mother-country and a common freedom, and that they feel this mother-country and this freedom to be their most precious possession, and will defend them with life and blood, is proved by the last general rising on the threatened war with Russia, during the foregoing winter. That the Cantons during the times of peace squabble one with another, is no less one of their everyday customs, as it is amongst not very good brothers and sisters in many homes. And sometimes even bloody quarrels have grown out of squabbles, as in the war of the Sonderbund. The sentiment of freedom has hitherto been more Cantonal than Federal.

Many people upbraid the present government with endeavoring to obliterate local interests and local considerations in order to effect a greater centralization, a common feeling for the Confederate state. But this is, after all, evidently a great step towards a higher union. And the common festivals and exhibitions, by means of which the government is endeavoring to awaken in the individual Cantons the mind to the common unity and the common home, as well as to call forth brotherly love, are beautiful and estimable in themselves, and especially calculated for the purpose intended. Yet they have not succeeded in assembling all the children of the land. Neither Graubündten, Valais, nor Tessin, were to be met with at these gay national festivals. However, railroads extend out